Amber Alert
The last time I saw my sister was just after her eleventh birthday. I had just started my junior year of high school and Amber was still in elementary school. She was four years younger than me and had talked mom and dad into letting her walk home alone from school every day. Even though we lived in a safe neighborhood, my parents were always over-protective of us and had refused to let her walk to school, even though it was only a few blocks away. The compromise was that on rainy days, she would still have to ride the bus to and from school, but since we lived in San Diego, rainy days wouldn’t be much of a limiting factor.
It was a Wednesday. Normally I don’t remember what day of the week something happens, but Wednesdays were early release days and I was home from school just before two o’clock. Earlier, my lacrosse coach had informed me I would get kicked off the team if I didn’t raise my grades in my biology class. I had convinced myself that Mrs. Weaver had it in for me and was on a personal mission to ruin my life. I had a C in her class and didn’t feel like I was going to end up failing Biology but she told coach Gartner that if I didn’t do well on the test on Friday that my grade would drop to a D, which would suspend me from the team. So as soon as I got home, I grabbed a snack and headed to my room to study.
I was so focused on trying to wrap my head around protein synthesis that I didn’t hear my mom come home. I was startled by my headphones being lifted off my head and I jerked in my chair. “Holy shit mom!”
She laughed. “You always were a jumpy one. Now get your ass down here and help me unload the groceries,” she said, headed for the bedroom door. “And watch your language, mister!”
I followed her down the stairs and headed out to the car to grab the rest of the grocery bags while she started putting away the stuff she had already brought into the kitchen. Mom was putting the milk into the fridge when she said, “So I got a call today from your biology teacher.”
I set the bags on the counter and sighed. I hated my biology teacher. Okay, so to be fair, it was more like a strong aversion towards her. “Yeah mom, I got it. I’ve been studying for the test on Friday since I got home,” I said.
“She’s concerned about your grade and she says that you’re not applying yourself.”
“I don’t even understand what that means. How does one ‘apply’ themself, anyway? She is just an evil old woman who takes pleasure in ruining her student’s lives.”
My mom raised an eyebrow at me. “She’s not an evil old woman,” she said, a hard edge to her voice. “First off, she doesn’t look much older than I am and secondly, she’s just doing her job.”
I wanted to say something in my defense, but she pointed an accusatory finger at me, cutting my words off. “A job that you’re making more difficult for her. You know the rules around here, school comes first, sports second. So stay on top of your studies and do not slip behind or you’ll have much more time available to be a better student.”
I knew better than to push the discussion any further, so all I replied with was “yes mom. I’ll make sure my grades don’t drop.”
She smiled at me. “Good, so that’s settled, then.” She grabbed more groceries but stopped, the smile leaving her face. “Hey, where’s your sister?”
That was a good question. Amber always came swooping in whenever mom got home from the store to see what new snacks arrived in our house. “No idea. I would guess that she is in her room.” I chuckled. “Maybe she also has an evil teacher who assigns too much homework.”
My mom ignored my sarcasm and yelled out for Amber to come down and help put the groceries away, but there was no response. “What time did she get home?” my mom asked me with an edge of concern creeping into her words.
“I… uh… don’t know. I got home and started right in on studying for my biology test.”
“So you didn’t think to check on your sister?”
“Jesus, mom, I was studying. I lost track of time. Besides, she’s not my responsibility,”
“You are her big brother. She is your responsibility. You always need to look out for her.” And with that, she started up the stairs towards Amber’s room, calling out to her the whole way. My stomach dropped as I realized I hadn’t seen my sister since this morning as she left for school.
Amber wasn’t in her room.
My mother’s voice became more frantic as she went through the house, room by room, calling out for Amber. I ran outside to check the backyard, then the front, finding no sign of her.
Dad got home and soon after, called the police. As far as anyone could figure out, she never even made it to school that day. There was some sort of problem with the automated attendance system with her school, so mom and dad never even received a message that Amber was absent that day.
The next three days went by in a blur. The police issued an Amber Alert that went out all across the state. None of us got any meaningful sleep. Friends and family came by, bringing us food and offering us help and support. I was a mess, plagued by feelings of guilt. I kept telling myself that it was all my fault for not paying closer attention to my sister. Mom and dad were both distant, wracked with fear and worry. I could tell that they both thought I was to blame. A bad big brother. No matter how many posters I stapled to telephone poles or taped to store windows, it would not bring my sister back, or push away my self loathing.
When my parents weren’t handing out flyers or talking with detectives, they were talking to the media. The information on my missing sister was broadcast all over the news and radio, and it soon got national attention.
If you ever wondered how long it would take for the media, and for society in general, to turn on you in your moment of desperation, I can tell you. Exactly two fucking days. At first, it was people commenting on social media about how they knew how this story had played out. Obviously, one or both of my parents had killed Amber and dumped her body in a field somewhere. Some even speculated that I had molested my sister and killed her, and my parents were covering it up.
Nothing brings out the worst in people than an anonymous platform to spew out their disgusting, deranged bullshit out for the entire world to see. By the morning of the third day that she was missing, even some of the talking heads on the cable news networks had suggested that our family might be involved in the disappearance. Fucking vultures.
My aunt Elisa had come down from Portland to help however she could and that night of the third day, she had made a casserole for dinner. None of us were hungry, and we sat at the dinner table, picking at the casserole and vegetables on our plates. We sat in silence, each in our own private hell, when there was a knock at the door.
I looked up at my dad, who was sitting across from me, and followed his gaze to my mom. All the color drained from her face and I could feel a fist tighten around my heart. In the movies and TV shows, the cops always show up at your door to deliver bad news. Bad news like the body of your eleven-year-old sister was just found in an irrigation ditch, or worse.
“It’s ok, I’ll get it,” my aunt said as she got up.
My dad gestured towards her to have a seat. “No Elisa, I think I should get it,” and started towards the door. My mom got out of her chair, but her knees buckled and she caught herself just as I rushed to her side. I helped her up, and we made it to the front door just as my father was opening it. On the other side was Detective Barnes, the man who was assigned to the case. At the sight of him, mom swayed a little, her hand coming up to her mouth as if to stifle a scream.
Detective Barnes was smiling. I was expecting a sad expression, eyes downcast, as he broke the terrible news that no family ever wants to hear, but he was beaming with joy. His smile vanished as soon as he saw my mom’s reaction to him showing up on our doorstep, so he blurted out, “No, it’s okay! We found her! Amber is safe and unhurt. I wanted to come tell you in person. Wow, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you guys like that but…” My mom lunged at him, wrapping her arms around him and cut off whatever else he was going to say. My dad followed suit. My eyes filled with tears as my aunt grabbed me in an enormous hug.
After everyone calmed down, we went into the living room and Detective Barnes told us what he knew so far. They had found amber wandering around a truck stop near a town called Lost Hills that was over 250 miles north. A truck driver had just pulled in to get some food at the diner and spotted her. He had recognized her right away from the Amber Alert and immediately called 911. I never heard the trucker’s name, but the detective told us he wasn’t involved in the disappearance. They had ruled him out as a person of interest from his driving log. They took her to the nearest hospital to get checked out, but aside from being a little dehydrated and unable to remember where she was for the last three days, she seemed fine.
Everyone had a million questions for the detective and he answered them as best he could, but didn’t have many answers other than what he already told us. He said he was heading up there and they would be more than welcome to go with him to pick her up. It would be a four hour drive, but as an officer of the law, he promised he could cut it down to be as close to three hours while still driving safely. I stayed home with my aunt and they headed north to get my sister.
Later, my dad ‘explained to me’ that Amber was suffering from PTSD. They had brought her home the next day and when I rushed outside and hugged my little sister, she just stood there, arms limp at her sides. “Come on, Jimmy, let’s get inside,” my dad said, gently separating me from my sister. He must have sensed my confusion. “She’s had a rough few days, sport. She’ll come around. We just need to be patient and give her all the love and support she needs, okay?” and with that, he guided her into the house. I stood there for a moment and watched them go inside, then followed.
The next few weeks were… weird. What should have been a joyful reunion wasn’t. I read up on PTSD and saw that it was normal for people who had undergone a traumatic experience to become withdrawn, but Amber was damn near catatonic. As far as anyone could determine, she had no memory of what had happened to her during those three days that she was missing. And if she did, she wasn’t telling anyone.
For a while, I thought she might snap out of her mental fog. If anything was going to get through to her, it would be her cat, Sage. That cat would follow her around the house, always needing to be close to her no matter what she was doing. Right after she got home, Sage walked up to her, and she bent down to pet him. He stopped dead in his tracks and hissed at her. Then he swiped a claw at her hand and ran off. I cringed just watching it happen. It looked painful, but Amber just glanced down at the scratches like they were somewhat curious, then stood up and walked upstairs to her room.
I wish I could say that I sensed something was off with my sister, but I had taken the advice from the experts and my parents to heart. This was our ‘new normal’ and as odd as my sister was acting, we settled in as best as we could.
Sage wouldn’t go anywhere near Amber, so he ended up adopting me and following me all around the house. I was never much of a cat person, but the whole vibe of the house had changed since Amber’s disappearance and even though she was back, safe and sound, things were far from normal. Even mom and dad seemed different, like they were pretending they weren’t struggling to hold up an invisible weight, but I could sense it.
Sage was the only tangible link to the way things were before. And then he was gone too.
I was late getting home because lacrosse practice had gone long. If there was any silver lining to this whole thing with my sister disappearing, it was that Mrs. Weaver finally got off my ass and I wasn’t in danger of being dropped off the team. I slid my backpack off and dropped it just inside the door and headed towards the smell of cooked food.
“Hey, good timing!” My mom said as I rounded the corner.
“That smells fantastic! What is it?” I asked.
“Your father grilled some salmon, and I roasted some vegetables to go with it.”
My mouth was watering. My appetite was all but non-existent in the last few weeks, but between a strenuous, punishing lacrosse practice and my teenage metabolism, I was famished.
“Hey sport, how was school today?” my father asked. “Getting caught back up in all your classes?”
I was struggling. My head just wasn’t in it and all my teachers seemed to give me a lot of slack, given the circumstances, and I was taking advantage of it.
“Yep,” I lied. “Just about got my grades back up to where they were before…” I caught myself and glanced over at Amber. She was sitting at the table in her normal spot, but she might as well have been on another planet. She had that same thousand-yard stare she had since she came home. “But yeah,” I said, making eye contact with my dad again. “It’s all good.”
“Glad to hear it,” he said, and I had the distinct feeling that his reply would have been the same regardless of what I said. If I told him I was planning on dropping out of school and enlisting in the Marine Corps, I’m sure he would have said ‘glad to hear it’. At least mom was trying, even if she was also failing.
The rest of dinner went on like that. It felt like we were in a play that none of us knew the lines of dialog to, but were trying to keep the scene going. Improv in purgatory. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough, so after I stuffed my face with grilled salmon and roasted vegetables, I excused myself to go finish my homework. Gotta keep those grades up, even though my family is in the middle of some slow-motion implosion, right?
I closed my bedroom door, but remembered I needed to keep it open a crack for Sage to come and go as he pleased. I dropped my backpack on the floor next to my desk and pulled my phone from my pocket. Fuck homework, I thought as I scrolled through my contacts until I found what I was looking for. Kara.
I had a bit of a crush on her since Middle School. Okay, so maybe it was more than a bit of a crush. So when she came up to me in the hallway in between 3rd and 4th period and asked for my phone, I handed it over, somewhat apprehensive and suspicious. I watched as she added in her contact info. “I know you’ve been through a lot lately. If you ever need to talk to someone, call me, okay?” she said, smiling as she handed the phone back to me.
“Absolutely,” I said, trying to sound cool as I leaned against my locker. I’m pretty sure she could see right through my act because she got a big silly grin on her face and locked eyes with me for a moment before turning and walking away to catch up with her friends. “Don’t be a stranger!” she said over her shoulder.
I stared down at the phone in my hand, thumb hovering over the icon to call her. I took a deep breath and pressed down. She answered on the third ring.
“Hey Jim! I was hoping you would call!” Kara said. Her voice was like a cool breeze on a warm summer day, complete with goosebumps.
“Uh… hey Kara.” I knew I sounded like an idiot. I cleared my throat and tried again. “It’s Jim,” I said, lowering my voice to try to sound cool.
She laughed. “I know who it is. Oh, the wonders of modern technology. Remember, I added each other’s contact info into our phones earlier. Duh.”
I really suck at this. Despite my fumble, I laughed too. “Yeah, on top of everything else, I’m a dipshit.”
“Relax, I’m just messing with you. But I’m glad you called. I’ve been worried about you.”
Kara and I were always friendly with each other and there were several times over the last couple of years that I even thought she might have been flirting with me. Nothing had ever come of it since I lacked the courage to ask her out. When she told me she was worried about me, my initial reaction was to play it off. Say everything was fine. I don’t know if it was the empathy in her voice, my crush on her, or just having someone to unburden myself to over the phone, but I told her everything that had been going on since my sister’s miraculous return home.
“The only thing that’s somewhat normal is our dumb cat. I mean, he wants nothing to do with my sister since she got back, like she’s a completely different person or whatever, but he’s the person, or cat-person at least, who still acts the same around me. My parents are all weird as fuck, trying super hard to pretend like nothing’s changed and my sister is a total basket case and I feel like a complete asshole for thinking that, but Sage has been rock solid. He’s just a dumb cat, but at least he seems to give a shit about me.” I said, looking around my room. I was going to switch the camera around and show Kara my cat, but he was nowhere to be seen. That’s when it hit me that I haven’t actually seen him in a while. That was weird. Just one more fucking weird ass thing to add to the list.
“Hey, you kinda trailed off there for a sec,” Kara said.
“Shit, sorry. Was just looking around for Sage. He’s usually in my room with me by now, but I don’t see him anywhere. Was gonna put him on camera to introduce him to you.”
“Well, they say that cats can see beyond the veil into the spirit world,” Kara said, raising an eyebrow at me, paired with a mischievous grin.
I laughed. “Don’t know what that means, but my cat is just a cat. He’s really into getting scratches behind his ears and trying to hunt down the occasional bug that makes it into the house. Trust me, there’s nothing supernatural about Sage.”
“Maybe nothing supernatural, per se, but if nothing else, it sounds like he’s helping you out more than you probably realize.”
That’s probably true, I thought, but nowhere near as good for my soul as talking to you. “Yeah, you’re probably right,” I said, “and bonus points for working ‘per se’ into a conversation. I’m impressed.”
We talked until we both were on the edge of falling asleep. We said goodnight and Kara told me to say goodnight to Sage for her. I promised I would and drifted off to sleep feeling great for the first time in nearly a month, even though there was a small part of my mind that felt uneasy about Sage not being curled up at the foot of my bed.
The next day, I found what was left of Sage under my sister’s bed.
Mom and Dad were taking turns taking Amber to and from school each day. The doctor had cleared her to go back to school and despite still not being ‘herself’, he felt it was best for her to return to a normal schedule. I got home and had the house to myself and noticed that Sage’s food bowl was untouched, so I searched the house, room by room, just as my mom had when Amber had gone missing.
His neck was broken. I’m not even a vet or anything, but it was obvious by the way his head rolled over as I picked him up. His stomach had been ripped open but there were no guts, nothing you would expect to find inside a cat… not even any blood. It seemed like there should have been a lot of blood around him, stuffed into the space under her bed, next to a pair of old shoes.
I panicked. There were a million thoughts that all blasted their way through my brain at the same time, but somewhere in the turbulence I heard my mother’s voice from back when Amber first disappeared, telling me that I always needed to look out for my sister.
I buried Sage in the backyard in mom’s flower garden. I was just finishing up washing the dirt from my hands when my mom and sister got home. I did my best to pretend nothing was amiss and answered all my mom’s standard issue questions about my day. The whole time, Amber was staring at me with the ghost of a smile on her face that sent chills down my spine.
That’s it. I’m fucking DONE with this bullshit. I don’t know what the actual fuck is going on with my sister, if that’s even still her anymore, and fuck my parents who want to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that everything is just fine.
I stormed off to my room. I heard my mom calling out to me, “Jimmy! Is everything okay?” but I kept going. I pulled on my noise cancelling earphones and pulled up my Spotify playlist.
Fuck homework. Fuck my psycho sister and fuck my parents. Less than two years to go until I graduated and got the fuck out of here.
I grabbed my homework from my backpack. After staring at my open notebook for ten minutes and realizing that my mom wasn’t going to barge in to talk about my outburst in the kitchen a few minutes ago, I picked up my phone and called Kara.
The next few days went by without incident. Aside from the nightmares I was having every night about my cat murdering sister, anyway. I tried to forget about it, stuff those feelings down deep, but I couldn’t. Kara had been telling me all along that I needed to tell mom what Amber had done. I kept telling her that I didn’t want to add to my parent’s stress level and didn’t want to get Amber in trouble since she’d already gone through enough. Kara would respond by pointing out that while those things were true, killing a cat is a major red flag for deeply rooted psychological issues. I knew she was right, but didn’t want to have that conversation with them, or with Kara. I was done talking about it, so I asked her to go to homecoming with me.
Don’t get me wrong, I really wanted to ask her out and had been trying to find the right time for quite a while. In retrospect, I can see how she might have rejected me, thinking I just needed some distraction in my life or something, but she said she was wondering why it was taking me so long to ask.
After we got off the phone, I headed downstairs to scrounge for something to eat. I was on cloud nine, as dad would say. I truly had no interest in going to some lame high school dance. I would be just as excited to go with Kara to pick up someone’s dry cleaning. My first real crush just said she wanted to go out with me.
I rounded the corner into the kitchen and my mom and dad were sitting at the kitchen island, having a glass of wine and laughing. Seems like everyone was in a good mood for the first time since Amber disappeared. Dad looked up and must have picked up on my good mood, too. “Hey Jimmy! Glad to see that you’re out of your funk. What’s good?”
“Well, I’m taking Kara to Homecoming, so there’s that,” I said, beaming.
“That’s great!” said mom, raising her glass of wine to me in a toast.
I smiled and mimed holding up a glass to return the toast. “What’s got you guys in such a good mood?”
“It seems as though your sister has turned a corner,” Dad replied.
Mom lowered her voice to just above a whisper. “She has a friend over. You remember Brienne? They’re up playing in her room right now.”
I was confused. Brienne? I didn’t remember Amber having a friend named Brienne.
“Uh, who’s Brienne?” I asked.
Mom looked around like she was making sure nobody else was around. “Brienne. They’ve been friends since kindergarten.”
Realization hit me. “Jesus, mom, you mean Brian, right? C’mon, we’ve been through this…”
Dad held up his hands in a defensive gesture. “Whoa there, settle down buddy, we’re not being transphobic or anything. Brienne decided that she wants to be called Brienne again,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “I guess she grew out of it?”
“Not only that,” my mom interjected. “But Sage finally came home from whatever adventures he’s been off doing, and he’s up there with them, cuddled up in Amber’s lap.”
My jaw dropped.
“I know, right? Especially since he’s been so weird around her since she got back,” mom said, reaching for the bottle of wine. “And apparently she’s been interacting with all her friends at school again. I got that bit of good news today from her principal.”
After she refilled their glasses, she came over and gave me a hug. “Hey kiddo, I know things have been scary and weird, but we’re all getting back on track. And I can’t even tell you how excited I am that you’re going to Homecoming with Kara! I’m so excited for you!”
I had forgotten all about Kara and homecoming. I kept replaying the memories in my mind. Sage had been dead, right? I didn’t bury an injured cat out in the flowerbed and leave him for dead, did I? But that couldn’t have been what happened. I saw him. He was cut straight down the middle. His intestines were hanging out. His little cat neck was bent at an angle that made my stomach clench.
There was no way he was alive.
I forced a smile onto my face and gave my mom a kiss on the cheek. “That’s great news,” I said. “Still got a bunch of homework to do before bed, though,” I said as I turned to head back up the stairs.
“There’s still some leftover pizza,” my mom called after me. “Want me to heat it up and bring it up to you?”
“No thanks,” I replied. I wasn’t hungry anymore.
I knocked twice on Amber’s door and peeked my head in. “Hey sis,” I said as I opened the door. “I heard you had a friend over.” Sure enough, Amber and Brienne were sitting on her bed, facing each other. They were just staring at each other. My heart stopped when I saw Sage sitting on her lap.
“Hello James,” they said, voices overlapping. A dead cat who isn’t dead anymore and super creepy kids looking at me like they were silently debating which part of me would taste best - uncooked… hell no. Fuck that. I took that as my cue to leave them alone and fought the urge to push a bookcase in front of my bedroom door. I also shut down the urge to call Kara. Last thing I needed was for her to think that I was losing my mind. I wasn’t so sure that I wasn’t.
I didn’t push a bookcase in front of my door, but for the first time in my life, I locked it.
I barely slept that night. I may or may not have dozed off for a few moments, but immediately jumped back to consciousness, which continued until the first light of dawn broke through my bedroom windows. I got out of bed, put my shoes on, and headed out to the backyard and dug up the spot where I had buried Sage. I stopped when I found his fur covered body, right where I had left him. My mind was unraveling. I was completely unable to process what was going on. So I did the only thing I could think of. I covered Sage again with the damp earth, patted down the disturbed soil, and took a shower.
I was spiraling. My dad always told me to focus on the things you could control and do your best to forget the rest, but that shit just wasn’t going to work for me in this situation. After breakfast, I told my mom that I would take her up on her offer to set me up with a therapist, and she told me that she was impressed with my maturity. She made a few phone calls, and the appointment was set for the Monday after Homecoming, so I did my best to pack up all my fears and emotions into a tight little box and save it to unload on the therapist. I’d probably be sent away to an insane asylum, but that was okay with me. At least I’d be away from my sister.
I did my best for the next few days to pretend like everything was okay, though I stayed as far away from Amber and that demon hell-spawn of a cat that couldn’t possibly be Sage.
The days came and went, and I fell into a routine of denial and avoidance. Kara could see right through it, and it didn’t take her long to break down my resistance. She came over after school one day to study for a test and not making much progress. I was barely aware that she was even in the room with me and she called me out on my mental absence. After some prodding, I opened up to her, spilled it all out in the open, and fully expected her to run away from me as fast as she could. Hell, I wanted to run away from me as fast as I could. I was near tears as I finished and instead of laughing at me, she reached out and held my hand and told me that we would figure this out. Then she leaned forward and kissed me and for a while, I completely forgot all about my fucked up life.
That kiss and the promise of more to come sustained me. Breathed new life into my tortured psyche. I still avoided my sister and that creepy fucking cat that clearly wasn’t Sage like they were both carries of the plague though. A kiss can only go so far after all.
Amber was spending more and more time with her friends. Not just Brian/Brienne, but new kids I had never seen before. They always stopped talking whenever I was around and they all had that blank stare that creeped me the fuck out in ways that I couldn’t describe. The message was clear. Go away. So I did and never bothered to learn their names. Part of me felt guilty for not being a good big brother. That part got smaller with each passing day.
“What are you wearing to Homecoming” my mom asked. Oh shit. That’s tonight. My teenage brain was new to simple things, like thinking more than a few hours into the future and I was at a loss.
“Uh… I don’t know.” I replied. It was a statement, but more or a cry for help.
My mom giggled. Like actually giggled. I hadn’t heard that sound come from her in a long time. I loved her laugh and especially her giggles. “Come on,’ she said. “Let’s go shopping.” So we went.
I walked up to Kara’s house wearing my new silk, maroon button-down shirt and charcoal colored slacks. My mom had even talked me into a haircut. I rang the doorbell, feeling pretty good, and when Mr. Weaver answered the door, I immediately slipped back into awkward teenager mode. “Hi Mr. Weaver, I’m here to take Kara to the dance.” I said, holding out my hand like a proper gentleman.
He looked down at my hand, but didn’t shake it. “I don’t recall you asking my permission to take my daughter to the dance. Am I mistaken? Did I somehow forget that you came to me and asked me if you could take my daughter out? To a dance?”
I broke eye contact and looked down at my outstretched hand like maybe it had the answers to my predicament. It didn’t.
“Mike!” I heard Mrs. Weaver yell from somewhere inside. “Quit terrorizing the poor kid and just let him already. I swear to Christ…”
A sly grin spread across his face as he reached out and grabbed my hand, and pulled me inside. “Relax kid, I’m just messing with you. She’s almost ready.” He said, slapping me on the back. “Can I get you something to drink? Beer? Scotch maybe?” He pulled back, giving me a look over. “You look more like a gin guy to me. Hey, Carrie!” He yelled over his shoulder, “A couple of gin and tonics for me and our guest!”
To my relief, Mrs. Weaver came around the corner and saved me. “I’m so sorry, Jim, don’t pay any attention to that troglodyte,” she said, gesturing towards her husband. “Honestly, I’m surprised he wasn’t pretending to clean his shotgun or something when you got here.” She glared at Mr. Weaver, eliciting a laugh from him. She sighed. “She’ll be right down. And I must say, you look very handsome tonight!” I blushed. Mr. Weaver looking me over was unnerving, but part of me wanted to do a slow catwalk turn to show off my new clothes for Mrs. Weaver.
While I struggled to come up with a response to Mrs. Weaver’s compliments, we all heard the clack of heels on hardwood coming from upstairs. We all turned as Kara made her appearance. Once she saw that she had all our attentions, she stopped and did her own slow catwalk turn to show off her attire. Low cut maroon dress that matched my silk shirt, like we had coordinated it beforehand, a tight bodice to accentuate her newly acquired teenage curves and black heels. I forgot to breathe. I remembered when I heard Mr. Weaver exclaim, “Damn! That’s my girl!” as he slapped me on the back again.
I got through the awkwardness at the Weaver household and the dance was a blur. In retrospect, I can now relate that the best moments of your life pass by with a blurred filter lens, moving from scene to scene in some dream sequence in a low budget foreign film as a way to cut to the more important stuff to drive the plot along.
Those blurry, rushed scenes are where the magic of our live really happens. Fuck film.
The hourglass always runs empty of sand and at some point, we must return from our forays into fantasy. From happiness. To inevitable death. And as such, I found myself making the walk back up towards the front door of my house.
Rushing towards the front door might be a better description. I was told that I needed to be home by 11 o’clock and had lost track of time. As it was, I was about 15 minutes late. Which honestly isn’t that bad for a teenager coming home from his first date, and I wasn’t terribly thrilled about going back home to the insanity.
I was still high on the events from the dance to even notice that my house was unusually dark. There’s something almost supernatural about the way a woman transforms from your best friend (and new girlfriend!) to a work of art via the application of make-up, clothing and accessories. The effect of such is long lasting, paying dividends into the future, so much so that I didn’t even notice that the front door to my house was unlocked.
All the downstairs lights were off but there was sound coming from the living room and the flickering glow from the television, so I headed in that direction, excuses for being late ready to deploy. I really didn’t expect to get into any trouble for being a bit late, but with how weird things around the house, I wanted to be ready just in case.
Mom and dad sat on the couch, facing the television. “Hey guys, sorry I’m a bit late,” I said as I stepped into the living room. Neither turned their heads to greet me. Shit, did they fall asleep waiting for me? I checked my watch. No, it was only 11:16. I didn’t read my watch wrong earlier. I was tempted to leave them on the couch to wake up on their own and head upstairs to get ready for bed. And chat with Kara, of course.
I stopped mid-turn. Nah, I’m not that late. I should wake them up and let them know I made it home okay.
“Dad, I’m home,” I said, gently shaking his shoulder. “Just wanted to wake you up and let you know I’m home. The dance was a lot more fun that I thought it would be.”
Still no response. My mom was a heavy sleeper, but my dad was always easy to wake up. “Hey,” I said, shaking his shoulder a bit harder. “Wake up guys.” I stepped around the couch just as whatever show was on TV switched over to a brightly lit commercial, brightening the entire living room, and that’s when I saw it.
Blood. So much blood. Giant pools of it soaking the couch cushions they sat on and splashed all over the rug and floor. I staggered back, nearly slipping and falling on my ass. And the smell… how did I miss the coppery scent of all that blood moments ago? It filled my sinuses. I couldn’t take my eyes off my parents, both dead and covered in sticky, dark maroon blood. Their throats ripped open in contrast to the peaceful position of their bodies and almost serene expressions on their faces.
I lost control of my stomach and vomit shot out of my mouth and nose. I gasped for breath as my hand struggled to free my phone from my pocket. I was finally able to get it out, but it fell from my grasp and splashed onto the area rug.
“We’re glad you are home, James.”
I spun around towards the sound of my sister’s voice. She was standing in the dining room, her head tilted just a bit to the side. Her lips were pulled back into a creepy, toothy smile.
“Stay out!” I yelled. “Don’t come in here!”
She cocked an eyebrow at me.
“Get the phone and call 911,” I demanded. “Mom and Dad are hurt. Get the phone and do it now!”
She didn’t move. And that’s when I noticed the knife in her hands. My mind started to crash. “What… what happened?”
Her head tilted to the other side like a confused puppy.
“What did you do?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper as the weight of reality came crashing down on my soul.
Amber didn’t answer my question. Instead, she calmly walked towards me, keeping her eyes locked on mine the whole way.
I should have run, but didn’t think to. I was frozen in place, but made no attempt to fight it. Looking into her dark eyes, there was a strange light to them that seemed to be glowing around her pupils. At first I thought it was the reflection of the light from the TV in her eyes, but as she got closer, I could see they had their own light. Faint, flickering violet light. It was mesmerizing, and for a few moments, I forgot all about the horror surrounding me. I forgot about the large kitchen knife she still held.
As she came around the end of the couch where the body of my mother sat, she held out her hand and caressed her dead cheek as she passed. “They were too old for us,” she said. “We cannot work with minds that are set in their ways, such as theirs. Habits. Experience. All those hopes and dreams that have been lost and forgotten. A malformed lump of clay that someone had started to shape into something meaningful, but forgot about and left out in the sun. We have tried to reshape those minds into something meaningful. Give it purpose, but they have set and they always shatter.”
A pain starts just behind my eyes. I’ve never had a migraine before so I don’t know if it’s that, or the stress of what is happening. Hell, maybe I’m having a stroke. Whatever it is, it’s intense and focused, like the tip of an icepick being slowly inserted into my optic nerve. I’m about to cry out in pain, fall to my knees screaming, but just as fast as it started, it’s gone.
Amber sighs. “You’re too old too, James. But only just. It’s too bad, we would have liked very much to play with you.”
I don’t know why it took me so long to understand that Amber never came home. I think I’ve known the whole time, but just couldn’t wrap my head around it. Unable or unwilling to let my mind go there. That this little girl standing in front of me, next to the bodies of my butchered parents, standing in a puddle of their rapidly cooling and coagulating blood, this fucking thing is not my sister.
And then I was free from whatever it was that I saw in her eyes that was holding me still. One single word shouted from the depths of my soul. RUN.
I turned away from those glowing, soulless eyes and took off towards the front door and made it two steps when something furry and pissed off hit the side of my head.
I stumbled as I tried to fight off the cat. Fangs sank into the back of my neck while claws raked across the sides of my face and head. I managed to get my hand around his neck and ripped him off of me. I threw him as hard as I could against the wall and he collapsed in a heap on the floor.
“Fuck you devil cat!”
The words had just left my lips when there was an intense, burning pain in my back that stole my breath. Instinctively, I reached back to the pain and felt wetness. I turned again to run and only made it a few more steps before crashing into the floor, skidding to a stop against the hallway wall next to the cat.
I gasped for air but couldn’t fill my lungs. The pain was universal. Nothing else existed. I held my hand tightly against the pain and could feel my blood pulsing past my fingers. She stabbed me. Holy fuck! What was there… my kidney? Liver? Holy fuck. I had no idea anything could hurt so much.
The sound of footsteps approaching brought me back to my senses. I tried to get up but collapsed again before I even got to my knees. I started to crawl away from the thing that looked like Amber that was getting closer. Fear and pain, pain and fear kept me moving but there was a voice in my head that was saying it was pointless to fight it. I was losing too much blood and not making much progress.
She… It… walked past me and I heard the sound of the deadbolt in the front door snapping to a locked position. FUCK.
I heard her let out a little giggle, then her footsteps walked past me and back into the living room. I had no fucking idea what she was doing, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get out through the front door. I knew I wouldn’t be able to manage getting up, flipping the lock over and opening the door, all while trying to keep what was left of my blood supply inside my body. I was going to die in this hallway.
The blood loss was making me feel light headed, and I was starting to accept my fate, but I realized that the door into the garage was just in front of me. We never kept it locked and I could probably reach up and pull on the door handle while pushing, letting me in. If I could get in there, just the weight of me against the door on the other side would be enough to keep Amber-thing out while I… what? Bled out? My phone was in a puddle of blood in the living room and I didn’t think I could reach the garage door opener. Maybe if I started yelling loud enough a neighbor might call the cops? That was my best bet. I would keep fighting as long as I could. I was probably going to die. I was in the process of dying. Each beat of my heart was pushing more blood out of my body. So yeah, dying. But not giving up.
I reached up and grabbed the door handle and was relieved when it pulled down and the door swung open into the garage. I tucked in my legs and let the door swing shut behind me. The light in the garage was motion activated, and it turned on. On the floor next to the door was my dad’s tool box, and I flipped the lid open. There was an oil stained rag that I grabbed and pushed against the wound in my back. Anything, even an oily rag would be better than just my bare hand back there.
I flipped the box over, spilling the contents out onto the concrete floor. I picked up a screw driver, thinking I might be able to wedge it into the door to keep it from opening from the inside and saw the button to open the garage door on the wall next to the door handle. I immediately reached up to try to open the garage door, pushing past the pain and felt the weight of what used to be my little sister slam against the door. I was off balance and the door ripped open, smacking into my head. I lost my balance and crashed to the cold concrete floor, my head bouncing off both the door and the concrete within a couple of seconds.
I rolled over onto my back and saw Amber standing above me, looking down with that same toothy grin, knife still clutched in her hand. I heard the sound of the motor to the garage door. I must have hit the garage door opener before the door slammed into my head. I felt the cold night air coming into the garage as the door raised up, but I smelled something rotten from inside the house, past the open door that Amber held open. Rotten eggs? From what? Did she turn the gas on?
She giggled again. “James,” she said. “Brother.” The word was venom on her tongue. “You can’t get away from us. You can’t stop us. And you are of no use to us.”
“Fuck you, cunt.” I said, teeth clenched in pain. “I don’t know what the fuck you are, or what you did to my sister, but I will fucking kill you.”
“The only thing you will do is die,” she said, stepping into the garage. The door slammed shut behind her. It felt like the lid of my coffin slamming down on me.
Amber was gone. She had been gone since that first day she went missing. Against all odds, she had come back to us and gave us all hope. But whatever came back wasn’t her. I don’t know if it was something that was imitating Amber or something that had taken over her body, but whatever it was, it was pure evil. The hope that her return had given us was now dead in my living room and bleeding out of my body.
She stepped across my body and sat down on my chest. My eyes were fixed on hers, the strange violet glow behind and around her pupils drawing me in once again. There was a flash of reflected light off of metal as the kitchen knife was raised above her head.
I swung my free hand up in a wide arc aimed straight at her temple. The screwdriver that I had… that I had been planning on wedging into the door jamb to keep it closed… I buried it into the side of Amber’s head.
It was like a switch got flipped and I watched as the light left her eyes. The knife clattered to the concrete next to my head, I made no attempt to dodge it. I stared into her eyes and she stared into mine, but I didn’t see life in those eyes. I kept looking, hoping to see something, some sort of explanation maybe… as her body slumped over to the side.
I took in a deep breath and regretted it as pain thrust into my back again. For a moment I had forgotten that I was dying. Then I remembered that the garage door was open, so I started crawling toward it.
I had crawled all the way to the front yard, leaving a thick trail of blood to mark my progress, before the house exploded behind me. The last thing I remember was a bright light and a blast of heat on my back before waking up in a hospital.
The doctors told me I had almost died. Exsanguination was the word they used. I had to look it up later.
The detectives told me that my sister had turned on the gas stove in the house and lit a candle before she had followed me into the garage to finish me off. They tried to tell me that she must have had some sort of psychotic break because of her abduction and killed my parents and tried to kill me during some sort of disassociated episode. But I knew they were trying to explain away inexplicable events. I didn’t discourage their theories.
Kara came to visit me. From her I learned I wasn’t alone. The same night my parents got slaughtered, all of Amber’s friends murdered their families and set their houses on fire. I wondered how that fit into the detective’s narrative of my sister going psycho and murdering my parents but never got the chance to ask them.
After I recovered, I moved to San Diego with my aunt. Kara and I stayed in touch for the rest of our high school years and we both applied to, and were accepted at, San Diego State University. She kept me sane while I tried to make sense of everything, but I never could. Make sense of it. My sister disappearing. Her unexpected but joyous return. My parents turning a blind eye to her odd behavior. The death and return of Sage…
I would spiral but Kara would somehow pull me back. And somewhere along the way, I realized that my inability to cope wasn’t ever going to change. I needed to take charge of my reality and fight back.
I’m now in my third year at SDSU and my major is computer science. My pet project, that I had envisioned during my senior year of high school, was to work on a machine learning program to scour all sources of media. Literally anything posted online in any format, looking for a few specific parameters.
A prepubescent child going missing.
That same child being found on the third day.
No evidence of abuse of any sort on the recovered child.
Last year, I perfected my AI beast and set if free into cyberspace where it is on the hunt. Dealing with the murder of my parents and loss of my sister was very traumatic, but one thing that always stuck with me was the way that the Amber-thing always referred to herself as “we” has haunted me ever since. There were more of these… things. This wasn’t the first time it had happened, so it would happen again. And as I told it that night, as I lay dying on the cold concrete of my parent’s garage, I would find it. And kill it.
My phone popped up with a notification an hour ago from my hunter-killer AI program. It had been running, silently in the background for nearly a year and today was the first time there was a hit.
An Amber alert had was in Boulder, Colorado three days ago for a missing twelve-year-old boy. He was found at a shopping mall in Salt Lake City. There was no way that the story would have made the main stream media, with all the political bullshit going on since it’s an election year, but my program found it.
The drive to Boulder should take us about 11 hours, if we limit our breaks. Kara packed up some food for us to eat on the road. And since the detectives never considered me a suspect in the death of my parents, I still have my father’s screwdriver that I buried into the side of that thing’s head. It’s the only possession I have left and I’m going to follow through on my promise to whatever the fuck it was that stole my sister and murdered my parents.